Monday, March 12, 2012

A Leopard’s Proposal for Changing the Name of his Spots

We are fond of the philosopher Colin McGinn, a man of good sense, and have quoted him in several essays. But now he has written a piece (featured in today’s ALDaily hit parade) that is either quite silly, or slyly tongue-in-cheek.

He proposes, as a marketing gimmick, to abolish the name of “philosophy”, while continuing to pursue the subject. Let us listen to our wordsmith:

To load the dice, we might also wish to describe ourselves as doing “ontical science,” at least until our affinity with the sciences sinks in — then we might abbreviate to “ontics.” Other possibilities might include “beology” or “beological science,” “conceptive science” (like “cognitive science”), “beotics” (like “semiotics”).

The only use for this afterbirth ontics, is for a poetaster needing a near-rhyme for Ebonics. For myself, I shall favor his latter suggestion, beotics, and dub those who might follow that lead -- the Boeotians.

Compare that earlier move, whereby philology was morphed into linguistics, and later certain of the sillier linguists, wishing to sound scientific, re-christened themselves linguisticians. (That unlovely coinage had a brief vogue, before being turned over to the undertaker, or, as they prefer to call themselves, the mortician.)

We have elsewhere quoted our favorite Neothomist, against such slight-of-hand, such dressing up in science drag in lieu of actual science:

In charity, we wish to assume that Professor McGinn’s suggestion was a Swiftian modest proposal; yet are perturbed at the precedent of the otherwise-intelligent Richard Dawkins, who proposed that atheists should be re-christened… er, rebranded, as … wait for it …. “brights” (not making this up), in imitation of the successful self-re-branding by the Sodomites, as "gays". Apparently not as a merry jest, but in all earnest.

And most of those who post comments on McGinn's essay are taking him at his word.
-- Unless, of course, they too are all satirizing deadpan. (Wheels within wheels within a Moebius-band...)

For a critique of a similar auto-abnegating proposal, that philosophy should intussuscept into the body of psychology (rather like that native superstition known as koro (**), in which the testicles are believed to disappear up the body cavity), click here:

(**) We thank our colleague Commander Buckwalter, who has studied the matter in all the jungles of the globe, for reminding us of the name of this affliction. It seems peculiarly to affect American Republicans, who attempt to compensate by launching wars on distant smaller nations.

It would appear as though our philosopher, already febrile
in the article referenced above, slid further into some narcissistic
hubris.At the very least, he
lovednot wiselybut too well.And for this, he has been unceremoniously hounded out of the
Academy;causing rejoicing in the
quadrangles of Bryn Mawr.

In one sense, we do not lament overmuch.What was he doing in Miami anyway?That’s in Florida,doofus --
homeland of the twisted and retarded, no place to get any sober thinking
done.Sed -- Apta sit poena sceleri.For our φιλόσοφος has been hounded by the Erinnyes
of an evident Urninde, University President Donna Shalala, who has
perhaps a teensy little axe to grind.Let Wiki tell it:

She next served as Chancellor of
the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Under her chancellorship and with her
support, the University adopted a broad speech code subjecting students to
disciplinary action for communications that were perceived as hate speech. That
speech code was later found unconstitutional by a federal judge.[4] Also while chancellor,
Shalala supported passage of a revised faculty speech code broadly restricting
"harmful" speech in both "noninstructional" and
"instructional" settings. The faculty speech code was abolished ten
years later, after a number of professors were investigated for alleged or
suspected violations.

In June 2008, Conde Nast Portfolio
reported that Shalala allegedly got multiple below-rate loans at Countrywide
Financial because the corporation considered her an
"FOA"--"Friend[s] of Angelo" (Countrywide Chief Executive
Angelo Mozilo).

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David Justice studied French at the Sorbonne, mathematics and physics at Harvard and MIT, and math and linguistics at Berkeley.He is the author of The Semantics of Form in Arabic, in the Mirror of European Languages; and of the fictional worksI Don’t Do Divorce Cases (which includes stories originally published in Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine) and Murphy on the Mount. He taught French at Berkeley, and linguistics at the University of Alberta, then worked at Merriam-Webster as Editor of Etymology (where he edited Webster’s Book of Word Histories) and as Editor of Pronunciation.He subsequently was editor-in-chief at Franklin Electronic Publishers.He is currently employed as a language analyst, and consultant for the University of Maryland. He lives with his bride of forty years, overlooking a peaceful lake.